


bargain.

by ardberts



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Gen, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Tumblr: FFXIVwrite2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 00:10:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20497670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardberts/pseuds/ardberts
Summary: You get nothing because you are nothing. You are a disembodied soul of incorporeal guilt and regret.





	bargain.

**Author's Note:**

> prompt 2 for #ffxivwrite2019.

Spend enough time in solitude and you eventually forget what living is truly like. All the little things, the simple pleasures you used to take for granted, like the summer sun hot on your neck or the breeze in your hair and how it would get stuck to your forehead until you wiped away the beads of sweat on your brow with the back of your hand.

Funny, I used to think I hated that. I used to think I hated a lot of things, a lot of minor, everyday annoyances that I want more than anything to be inconvenienced by now. It’s strange — I can think of a handful of things, really small but really specific things, that I long for now knowing that I’ll never feel them again. The itchy discomfort of a straw mattress at my back at the end of a hot day, or the weight of my armor, dragging me down with every swing of my axe, bruising the flesh beneath my cotton undershirt if I dared try and be too nimble. I used to think, _gods, how fast I’d be, how lithe I’d be_ if it weren’t for the necessity of protection in battle.

Now my armor is weightless, as am I, and despite all the novelty that brings, I can’t help but despair at the absence of its burden.

It’s enough to make a man scream — and, for a while, I did, as loud as I could for as long as I could. As it turns out, a man can scream for quite some time when he can’t feel his lungs imploring him to breathe. Well — fat lot of good that did me, anyway.

When you walk the earth as a shade, no one can hear you and no one can see you. You reach out to tap someone on the shoulder and your hand glides straight through them. You greet someone passing your way and they keep walking. You cry and plead on your knees, begging for as long as you can for someone, anyone to hear you, to glance your way, to give you some small, insignificant sign that you exist, and you get nothing.

You get nothing because you are nothing.

You are a disembodied soul of incorporeal guilt and regret.

Eventually, I stopped trying to get anyone to notice me and started walking, no destination in mind, just forward, likely in circles. After a while, I didn’t care. My feet didn’t hurt, I was never short of breath, and I felt nothing. It spread throughout me like a plague and faster than you’d think. I found myself drowning in an ocean of nothing, completely numb, until soon I couldn’t even be bothered to see the world around me. Villages, animals, people, trees, the very dirt beneath my feet — all turned to mere blurs of color. My eyes unfocused on everything around me. I just kept walking.

As time went on, eventually, I couldn’t even see myself. It was as if my limbs had slowly evaporated into thin air, becoming the embodiment of my own emptiness — of my own _nothing_. I couldn’t even muster the energy to care about it happening, or miss them. I wondered how much time had passed since I’d died.

I think I slept. Not physically, of course, but I can’t recall a word for existing in such a deep haze that you lose all track of time, all track of yourself.

I say I slept only because I definitely woke up.

The visions came as brief, sensory flashes at first — the scent of vanilla, dark black hair. It would be a while before I could piece them together into a face, achingly familiar but frustratingly nameless nonetheless as I swam through the dimness of my own mind, clawing in whatever direction would allow me to surface.

Amber-colored eyes, freckles…

As her face grew clearer, so did my self. The first things I noticed were my hands, still translucent but there, outstretched in front of me as if grasping to hang on to the very threads of fabric the world was made out of. Blurry colors began to twist into shapes, taking form once again. It was all happening so fast, faster than it took for me to lose it — you will never understand the weight of _nothing_ until you’re pulled headfirst into _something_.

As quickly as the rushing sensation of returning to being began, it ended, and there she was standing not ten fulms from me. She lets out a gasp and I suddenly feel like I’ve intruded — I suddenly _feel_ like I’ve intruded.

I mumble something to myself, something about the Source? Something about the Warrior of Light?

“The Warrior of Darkness…?” she replies and then it hits me like a blow to the back of the skull. Looking at her, for just that brief moment, the scent of vanilla, dark black hair, amber-colored eyes, freckles…

“What?” I sputter, still finding my voice. “Did you just— you can hear me?!”


End file.
